At the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Cerevo—not to be confused with Cervelo—displayed an interesting internet-connected road bike called Orbitrec. Though the provided images shown here are renderings, there was a physical sample of the bike in the company's booth.

Cerevo’s business is internet-connected devices, not bicycles. The heart of the Orbitrec is Cerevo’s Ride-1 module, designed to be attached to an existing bicycle. It contains a nine-axis sensor module which measures acceleration, angular velocity, and geomagnetism. Additionally, it collects temperature, humidity, barometric pressure (for altitude), and ambient light data, and it contains a GPS antenna. Ride-1’s communication technologies are ANT+, Bluetooth LE, and WiFi, and there is a companion smartphone app. Claimed runtime is 15 hours. The unit measures about 48x156x27 mm; a weight was not available. The press release states Ride-1 will go on sale in the spring, and will sell for less than $300.

So what does this thing do? It functions like a GPS-enabled cycling computer and records speed, distance, elevation, position, and time data; and through ANT+ or Bluetooth, it collects data from power and heart rate sensors.

But Ride-1’s additional sensors and connectivity allow it to go beyond the average GPS cycling computer. From the press release, “using a connected smartphone, if you crash it will be able to automatically send an SMS to a friend, change suspension damping when passing a certain point, or use the [ambient light] sensors to automatically turn on the light when in tunnels. Detected bumps and road conditions can be uploaded to the cloud via the smartphone app, alerting other riders of any changes in road conditions or dangers ahead.”

Basically, we’re talking about a great deal of information about the rider, the bike, and the environment, crowd-sourced and shared with the world. When enough people contribute, you get a huge chunk of data that can be used for all sorts of purposes: surveying the health of a population; determining average athletic performance; updating infrastructure conditions and requirements. And, likely, the companies collecting all this data about us can sell it for a tidy profit.

(Aside: If the crash sensing and notification feature sound like a good thing to you, check out the $119 ICEdot crash sensor, a product I use and recommend that you can buy today.)

The Orbitrec takes the Ride-1 module and integrates it into a fascinating frame. The concept has been kicking around on the internet for a while. The Orbitrec is an evolution of a frame out of Japan known as the DFM Bike Project. It uses 3D-printed (additive manufacturing) titanium lugs joined to carbon-fiber composite tubes. Cerevo’s press release states that the frame is custom built for the rider, with a claimed delivery time of under a month. If the press release is to be believed, the Orbitrec frame will be for sale in the spring with a retail price of, “less than $7000.” No weight was available.

The custom-sized Orbitrec is delivered in a month and features 3D-printed titanium lugs Image courtesy of Cerevo

3D-printing is all the buzz, but in cycling its use has so far been limited to prototyping new bikes or parts, or one-off or very small runs of parts like the handlebars on Bradley Wiggins’s hour record bike. In early 2014, Empire cycles out of England showed a 3D-printed titanium full suspension mountain bike, but it is still not available to the public.

If I were to take a wildly unsubstantiated (but somewhat educated) guess, I’d say the Orbitrec will never be sold. Instead, Cerevo is using it to draw attention to the Ride-1 module and demonstrate how it can be cleanly integrated into a bike frame with the hopes of selling the modules to Specialized, Trek, Cannondale, Giant, etc. I’ve reached out to Cerevo and requested an Orbitrec for review. If I’m wrong, you’ll see a review here this summer.

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